Beijing (Great Wall Day)

Well, another day closer to getting Presley and we are worn out. It’s about 6:15pm and we just got back to the hotel from our trip to the Great Wall. Kendall's sleeping pattern is still a little off so she has been up since 2:30. We have been up off and on since then. We went ahead and got up around 4:50 and got showered and ready. We had our western/eastern breakfast buffet downstairs again. I could go there every morning and be satisfied till supper.

We met in the lobby with the other families that are here to adopt at 8:00. Some of them arrived earlier in the week and adopted children from Beijing and the rest are families will travel on Monday, like us, to meet their children in the Province of their orphanage. There were 8 families total. Joy, our Beijing guide, had a bus waiting outside. We loaded the bus and took about a 1 ½ hour ride, north, toward the outskirts of Beijing. We had been warned to dress warm by Shiyan, our other Bethany guide, last night when she advised us to “wear our underwear today”. So, I wore underwear today. Georgia wore long johns that she bought yesterday and Kendall was bundled like a true Chinese.

Shiyan was right; the temperature today was 32 degrees F, 0 C. The wind on the top of the mountains was blowing around 40-50 mph. I can’t tell you what the wind chill was but it was so cold I forgot I had on underwear! We rode a gondola up the mountain to an area of the “Great Wall” and once there we could walk as far as the eye could see. We walked enough to get some good photo opportunities and headed back to the lift to get back down the mountain. I can’t remember the last time I was that cold. We arrived in the valley and headed toward the bus when a little Chinese lady stuck her head out the door of a building and yelled, “Coffee”. Our path turned toward her without thinking. Ahhhhhh! Hot Coffee!
We loaded the bus and off to the cloisonné factory we went. I actually enjoy touring the working part of the factory and watching the Chinese people hand-making these intricate pieces of art. We spent 30-40 minutes touring the factory and watching from a few feet away as they work their fingers to the bone, and then……they take us into the showroom where you can buy any item that they make. The factory was a fraction of the size of the showroom. They must have 30 young Chinese girls that follow you around urging you to purchase every $1 to $25,000 piece of cloisonné that is hand-made in the factory. Remember, that was the part I liked. Georgia enjoyed it and we had a time limit to shop so I dealt with it. We went upstairs and had a traditional Chinese meal. We sat at a large table with a huge lazy susan in the middle. They loaded the center of it up with great food and we just twirled it round and round.

On the way back to the hotel Joy told the bus driver to take us through the Olympic Village from the 2008 Olympics. 6000 people were forced out of their homes to create an area to build buildings and facilities for the masses to come in for a few weeks. The pictures we took were from the bus window but there are several recognizable buildings. The “Bird’s Nest” for the opening and closing ceremonies and the aquatic building where Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals are the most famous. We finally made it back to the hotel and it was like being home. Not really, but it was nice for today. Kendall is crashed so I expect her to be up in the middle of the night again ready to go at it. We head to the “Opium District” tomorrow along with the tour of the “Forbidden City”, Tiananmen Square and the Chinese acrobatics show. Sleep is a must right now. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz!